Musasir

Muṣaṣir Assyrian ^KURMu-ṣa-ṣir and variants, including Mutsatsir, Akkadian for Exit of the Serpent/Snake ), in Urartian Ardini was an ancient city of Urartu, attested in Assyrian sources of the 9th and 8th centuries BC.

Sandstone statue of a man or deity. The statue belonged to the Musasir Kingdom. Urartian period, 1st millennium BCE. Precise provenance of excavation is unknown. Erbil Civilization Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan.

It was acquired by the Urartian King Ishpuini ca. 800 BC (see the Kelashin Stele). The city's tutelary deity was ^dḪaldi. The name Musasir in Akkadian means exit of the serpent.

The city's location is not known with certainty, although there are a number of hypotheses, all in the general area of 36°N 46°E / 36°N 46°E / 36; 46, in the Zagros south of Lake Urmia. François Thureau-Dangin tentatively located it at Mudjesir, 10 km west of Topzawa. Reza Heidari, an archaeologist of the "Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization" of Iran's West Azarbaijan Province claims Rabat Tepe near Sardasht, Iran as the location of Muṣaṣir.^[1] Lynch claimed that it was close to the modern town of Rowanduz in Iraqi Kurdistan ^[2]

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